iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 4m

I quite liked this on the Amiga. Of course, I hadn't seen the arcade version then, so I didn't know what to compare it to, but I found it very fun and playable.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 7m

We published an interview with Robert Bowling this week (done by @retrogamingexpo.bsky.social ). I especially liked Bowling's response to the question about No Russian. Read the English version of the interview here: spillhistorie.no/2026/10/08/a...

MW2 was enormous, but also controversial, «No Russian» in particular. How did you handle that?

I believe games can be anything. They can be art, they can be mindless entertainment, they can be thought-provoking, they can be emotional, they can be serious, or they can be silly. You do a disservice to gamers if you limit what a game is capable of invoking. For me No Russian was an opportunity to push those boundaries and give players a look at heavy situations while also giving them autonomy to decide how to handle a situation. The best thing about that mission is you don’t need to shoot any non-combatants.

So when I was promoting the game, I flew all around the world. I would be traveling for over a month straight, one day in Australia, then fly to Hong Kong, then to Paris, then to the Netherlands. Each time, sitting down with local press and media and playing through this mission. I was fascinated by how each region would play No Russian. I wouldn’t tell them what to do, I would just hand them the controller and observe.

Americans always shoot first. They don’t even need to be told. Australians would wait until they were told to shoot, and Europeans would hold off until they felt like they had to shoot. It was interesting to see, if you put a weapon in the player’s hand and tell them to do something awful, how many will do it.

Afterwards, they’d all have a lot of complicated feelings about what they just experienced, and then I would tell them, «You didn’t have to shoot.» You could have shot over their heads, you could have ignored the warning. You could skip that mission entirely (in the final game) and it would have no impact on your progression. Once they realized they had a choice, and they chose to follow orders despite not wanting to, it created a new perspective on the level which was a lot more introspective than it was controversial. I loved that moment and I think it teaches a lot of lessons we could all use today.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I adore this game. It is my favourite platformer of all time (though I do prefer the C64 version). And that tune lives for free in my head, it is always welcome.

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Reposted by Joachim Froholt

Retro Dream @retrodream.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Bubble Bobble, Amiga 500 with 1084S display. A great game to play with your pal after school! 100 increasingly devious levels, easy to learn, surprisingly hard to master and that incredible theme tune still refuses to leave your head. Photo shot in my studio.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Hvert mellomrom er en byte du kunne brukt på noe mer fornuftig. :)

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Finally completed Ropoko on the MZ-700. Took way more than the time shown there, and I still have to do the final part of my walkthrough so I'll have to repeat a ton of stuff. I'm very happy that I solved most of it on my own, was a difficult game! Mapping & the though process around that helped.

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Reposted by Joachim Froholt

Random Commodore 64 Screenshots @rndc64screens.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Graphics BASIC (1983) A double feature today, as one didn't really work without the other. We see a programming example from Graphics BASIC by Ron Gilbert and Tom McFarlane. The tiny listing and the image it produces. If you've ever tried to do graphics in standard BASIC, this'll blow your mind.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

There's a lovely Colossal Cave reference later on. :)

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

As a kid, if it had anything to do with dinos, I loved it. I used to watch Journey to the Beginning of Time (the original Czech version) several times each week (probably daily if I could).

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

That is a really neat cover, I especially like the fifties-style dinos in the background.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This is a great shot! And yes, I can.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Fisherman Fred sounds way nicer than Up Yours... :)

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Reposted by Joachim Froholt

Frank Force @frankforce.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

My new game SP13KTRA is out! 🌈 8 racers, 8 tracks, 8 songs, real 3D, and it all fits in 13K. Play in your browser on desktop or phone: mouse, keyboard, gamepad or touch. @newgrounds.com @wavedash.com @itch.io @github.com #js13k #gamedev

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Yes! Space Mouse and several others, like the new Heiankyo Alien.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Jeg har mutet henne for lenge siden. Syntes flere burde gjøre det.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

How often do you see new games that Yuriko Keino has worked on? She's got two credits on Mobygames (I don't quite believe the Escape from Tarkov one) since 1989. One for you to check out, @dominictarason.com ?

mobygames.com

Yuriko Keino - MobyGames

Game credits, biography, portraits and other game industry information for Yuriko Keino - MobyGames

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Reposted by Joachim Froholt

Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

All the Adventures turns to Australia and their most succesful home-grown computer, the Microbee. I give the story of how the Microbee came to be and explore one of the games published by their software branch. bluerenga.blog/2026/09/18/e...

bluerenga.blog

Eye of Min (1983)

In the 1960s, Qantas wanted to improve their flight reservation system. At the time, reservation clerks would get tickertapes from travel agents and enter flights manually; every single sales offic…

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Reposted by Joachim Froholt

Sharpworks @sharpworks.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

A few screenshots for #Sharptember - This is the English language version of Tookato's excellent graphic adventure game "Ropoko" for the Sharp MZ-700, coming very soon now on physical cassette tape from Sharpworks :)

English language version of "Ropoko" for the Sharp MZ-700. Coming soon from Sharpworks.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Way ahead of everyone. Invest 100 billion dollars in my Ko-fi now please.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A quick #sharptember post. Here's my MZ-80A at a small computer gathering in Bryne, Norway, earlier this year. Pretty much every other machine was a @commodoreofficial.bsky.social of some sort. :)

My Sharp MZ-80A next to a C64 and an Amiga running ... Death Rally?

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Roguecraft DX from @badgerpunch.com is finally out on the PC! I wrote about it in Norwegian here. TLDR; it is deceptively simple, but if you don't treat it seriously and consider your choices carefully, you'll never win.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I miss those front pages. If I ever manage to get a printed @spillhistorie.no magazine out, it will look like that on the front.

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Reposted by Joachim Froholt

Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 06/09/2026

Happy #Sharptember to all those who celebrate. #RetroComputing

A Sharp MZ-80K computer shot from a low, sideways angle. The power /caps lock light is in the foreground below the Argo ship symbol. There's an inbuilt tape deck above it. In the background is the bottom of the inbuilt screen and the keyboard, consisting of square keys.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Oh, ok. A downgraded version, then.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I love that the old Legend adventures are available to buy. Especially Eric the Unready, one of the best adventure games of all time. I wish you could figure out something to get the Gateway games online too.

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Reposted by Joachim Froholt

Badger Punch Games @badgerpunch.com · 05/09/2026

Five days until Roguecraft DX is out!🤯 It started life on the #Amiga and ended up here. Chunky pixels, handcrafted rooms, and tentacled Eldritch horrors. A wishlist before launch day genuinely helps a small team like ours ❤️ Wishlist: thalamus.link/roguecraft #ScreenshotSaturday #roguelike

Dungeon room with monsters in Roguecraft DX

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Reposted by Joachim Froholt

Antonia @tonialuisa.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Oh, this is cool! The manual/newsletter alone would be worth the price to me. There's a very nice guide on how to get these games running, too 🙂

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Thank you so much! I have actually become aware of a few bugs in the dungeon crawler that I should be able to fix. Just worried it might send me down a rabbit hole of spaghetti code... :)

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

(I have played Pool on other platforms too, I meant that it's the only Gold Box game I've played properly on the C64 as well. Of all the versions, I prefer the Amiga one thanks to the soundtrack and somewhat nicer graphics than the PC version)

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I have only played Pool of Radiance on the C64, but found it worked very well. The platform was still quite important for SSI back in 1988. I think a lot of people would be surprised to see just how many strategy and role-playing games SSI released for the C64.

lemon64.com

Commodore 64 Games by Strategic Simulations Inc. - Lemon64 Game Database

Commodore 64 games database with information about every C64 game ever released!

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

And the ad I made for my favourite games publisher:

If Sharpworks had been around in 1983, their ad might have looked a bit like this. :)

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Just in case anyone thought I used AI for the duckling. Its yellow buddy (see #sharptember ) is also in the manual.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

To make the package a bit more fun, I also created a digital manual in the style of old computer club newsletters. Here are a few pages:

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Thanks! Yes, I'm quite happy with the manual :) Here are a few pages:

Page with a tenliner type-in and a (real, not AI generated) duckling.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

So the full package is now available here: joachim.itch.io/sharp-mz-gam... & here: ko-fi.com/s/f0e274af58 (I'll send anyone who buys on Ko-Fi a download link for Itch.io too). It also contains Minesnake, Numbertron and a few other smaller games.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I recently had a thought to collect all my Sharp MZ releases in a package on Ko-Fi, where people can support my work with @spillhistorie.no and @rndc64screens.bsky.social . And so I figured that I'd just put the dungeon crawler in that package. It's unfinished and unfun, but at least it's playable.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

A few years ago, I was working on making a dungeon crawler for the Sharp MZ-80A. It used a mix of traditional character graphics and pseudographics. Development eventually stopped, and it's been sitting around collecting dust since then.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The things I read on Bluesky...

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

We had the best king. King Harald: I'm going to Antartica in february, to visit the station we've got there. Queen Sonja: Which I consecrated ten years ago. King Harald: Yes, it was named after you, wasn't it? Queen Sonja: No, it was not. It's called Troll.

He most certainly slept on the couch that night.

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